A "panel of IP experts" devised a list of 49 criteria that consumer groups in 30 countries used to assess how best the IP frameworks in those nations serve consumers. Consumers International (CI), which is a global campaign group for consumers with members including Which? and Consumer Focus in the UK, published (8-page / 1.36MB …

Intellectual Property or Internet Protocol?

Re: Intellectual Property or Internet Protocol?

Please just write Intellectual Property in full. Register readers know what IP is, why are upstarts redefining it. (I still remember the shock when I looked into the, then new, IP Building at BT Labs, only to discover that it had nothing to do with 'IP'.)

Doesn't surprise me

We are only educated serfs, after all. The aim of the game is always to maximise the amount of our income that flows back to the government or business. That's why we're usually referred to as 'consumers' rather than 'citizens'.

Hmmm

never a penny of royalties?

I'm all for mass piracy as a cure for all wrongs (and once we round up media moguls to put them up against the wall, let's not forget about bankers, layers and last, but not least, politicians, past, present and wannabe.

Nevertheless I take exception to the statement like this one:

"Certainly, very little of the benefit will flow to performers, most of whom are paid a fixed fee for their performances, and never see a penny of royalties"

Particularly with "certainly", "most of them" and "never", when none of those bold statements are supported by any figures. Which, if available, could be disputed or dismissed as based on "biased / flawed / incomplete / out of context / irrelevant / one-sided / delete as appropriate" research.

Re: never a penny of royalties?

Agreed, it's focussing on the performers of the major labels. A band such as The Indelicates gets a lot of royalties and will continue to do so, mostly because they kicked the major label scavengers off their field.

Re: Were they on drugs

length of copyright

In the pharmaceutical industry, a company gets about 10 years of "copyright" for a new drug. In that 10 years they have to conduct clinical trials and get the drug to market to make a profit. After 10 years it goes "off patent" and anyone can copy it, which is why Tesco own brand asprin is about 30p for 16.

This seems about right to me. When intellectual property is created, it is right for the creator to profit. But, if that copyright expired after 10 years, other people could then use the music / film / writing / artwork in derivative works. It seems to me that this should add vitality to the entertainment / arts industries, and it would make it a lot easier to get hold of those old classics without breaking the law.

Re: length of copyright

Absolutely. This is one of the main policy goals of the Pirate Parties globally - to rewrite copyright laws aiming to better serve both the originator (rather than some monopolistic cartel) and ultimately society and cultural development as a whole.

Drugs are «protected» by patents, not by copyrights -

in the United States, for example, the term of patent is twenty years from the date of the filing of the first US application. The term of copyright is, as the article shows, much longer. As regards the case of «Aspirin», acetylsalicyl acid was first synthesized by a French chemist in 1853, and in 1899 Friedrich Bayer & Co was granted a patent for this substance under the trade name «Aspirin» by the Kaiserliche Patentamt in Berlin (obviously, even in those days not too much attention was paid to «prior art»). Thus even had «Aspirin» been «protected» by copyright legislation of the type in place today in many countries, acetylsalicyl acid would still be a so-called «generic» substance, and anyone who so wished could manufacture and sell it (subject, of course, to approval by the health authorities)....